Chicago community activists and local elected officials delivered 88,000 petition signatures to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) regional office Thursday morning, urging the agency to investigate complex financial agreements called interest rate swaps.

Those who delivered the petition signatures, collected online by the Grassroots Collaborative and several other organizations, say cash-strapped local and state governments are being squeezed by the "toxic swaps" they entered into with banks before the Great Recession. The complicated deals, which come with hefty penalties and termination fees, were intended to save taxpayer-backed organizations money, but they backfired when the economy crashed.

Chicago Housing Authority CEO Eugene Jones, Jr. spoke at the City Club of Chicago Monday afternoon, detailing the agency's progress toward reaching a key goal under the original Plan for Transformation and lauding the agency's success. But some housing advocates are not that impressed.